Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora

A decade in the making, Emily Raboteau’s Searching for Zion takes readers around the world on an unexpected adventure of faith. Both one woman’s quest for a place to call “home” and an investigation into a people’s search for the Promised Land, this landmark work of creative nonfiction is a trenchant inquiry into contemporary and historical ethnic displacement.

At the age oA decade in the making, Emily Raboteau’s Searching for Zion takes readers around the world on an unexpected adventure of faith. Both one woman’s quest for a place to call “home” and an investigation into a people’s search for the Promised Land, this landmark work of creative nonfiction is a trenchant inquiry into contemporary and historical ethnic displacement.

At the age of twenty-three, award-winning writer Emily Raboteau traveled to Israel to visit her childhood best friend. While her friend appeared to have found a place to belong, Raboteau could not yet say the same for herself. As a biracial woman from a country still divided along racial lines, she’d never felt at home in America. But as a reggae fan and the daughter of a historian of African-American religion, Raboteau knew of "Zion" as a place black people yearned to be. She’d heard about it on Bob Marley’s Exodus and in the speeches of Martin Luther King. She understood it as a metaphor for freedom, a spiritual realm rather than a geographical one. Now in Israel, the Jewish Zion, she was surprised to discover black Jews. More surprising was the story of how they got there. Inspired by their exodus, Raboteau sought out other black communities that left home in search of a Promised Land. Her question for them is same she asks herself: have you found the home you’re looking for?

On her ten-year journey back in time and around the globe, through the Bush years and into the age of Obama, Raboteau wanders to Jamaica, Ethiopia, Ghana, and the American South to explore the complex and contradictory perspectives of Black Zionists. She talks to Rastafarians and African Hebrew Israelites, Evangelicals and Ethiopian Jews, and Katrina transplants from her own family—people that have risked everything in search of territory that is hard to define and harder to inhabit. Uniting memoir with historical and cultural investigation, Raboteau overturns our ideas of place and patriotism, displacement and dispossession, citizenship and country in a disarmingly honest and refreshingly brave take on the pull of the story of Exodus....more

Community Reviews

Searching for Zion by Emily Raboteau is a soul-bearing contemplative journey seeking an answer to the question – “So, where is my home?” Growing up in the privileged environment of Princeton, New Jersey where her father was a professor specializing in antebellum African-American Christianity, Emily was aware she was different. Finding kinship with another girl, Tamar, who was also different as her father was a professor in medieval Jewish history, the girls learned and bonded around their connecSearching for Zion by Emily Raboteau is a soul-bearing contemplative journey seeking an answer to the question – “So, where is my home?” Growing up in the privileged environment of Princeton, New Jersey where her father was a professor specializing in antebellum African-American Christianity, Emily was aware she was different. Finding kinship with another girl, Tamar, who was also different as her father was a professor in medieval Jewish history, the girls learned and bonded around their connected history of oppression and the concept of the Promised Land. Disillusioned by America’s false hope of equality, her family’s unspoken ghosts of past racial transmissions, acerbated by her father’s leaving the family, Emily spent most of her young adult life in a “blanket of low-burning rage” until a vile humiliating incident with EL Al security staff turns up the flame. Emily realizes despite whatever imperfections that may exist, her friend, Tamar had her Zion – Israel, a real physical place that she can call home, and her mind is screaming where is my Promised Land (home). Thus the seed for the author to explore places Blacks have sought out to settle and establish a sense of home was germinated.

This fluidly-written book takes the reader on an honest and intimate voyage to Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, Ghana and the American South. At each stop, Emily pays attention to the truth of each community and the reality of their situation while getting to the bottom of identity, citizenship, acceptance, and commitment. Always asking the frank questions why are you here in this place, are you better in this place, would you leave this place and did your mind, body, spirit find the solace you were seeking.

As an African-American female, this is a subject close to my heart as I have often asked the same question, especially in young adult years – where is my home, a place that will unconditionally accept me. I was immediately engaged and the storylines appealed to me on many levels – the seamless weaving of historical, political, cultural, and personal information gave deepness and made all of the situations more poignant. The physical and emotional geography are well-played out so the vibe of the diverse communities has their own signature. I appreciate the author’s candid exploration of her family history against the background of the stories of others. For each of us reading this book, it will be a personal journey as it was for the author. But the commonality for all of us is - home is where the heart is for better or worse.

Overall, it was a profoundly beautiful read – sobering, exhilarating, contemplative and achingly tender. I recommend this book for readers of memoirs and those who enjoy stories about displacement, citizenship and the many guises of freedom.

Emily, whose mother was white and her father black, and her best childhood friend, white Tamar Cohen, lived in their own little worlds, Emily being raised as a Catholic and Tamar as a Jew. Emily’s father was Henry W. Putnam, Professor of Religious History at Princeton teaching antebellum African American Christianity and Tamar’s father was a Professor of Religious History teaching medieval Jewish History. Both girls remained apart from others, enjoying eacExcellent Modern Black Religious History

Emily, whose mother was white and her father black, and her best childhood friend, white Tamar Cohen, lived in their own little worlds, Emily being raised as a Catholic and Tamar as a Jew. Emily’s father was Henry W. Putnam, Professor of Religious History at Princeton teaching antebellum African American Christianity and Tamar’s father was a Professor of Religious History teaching medieval Jewish History. Both girls remained apart from others, enjoying each other. When they went to college, they grew apart. Emily’s father abandoned the family when she was sixteen, which caused her to feel homeless and she carried her father’s prejudice against whites because his grandfather had been murdered in Mississippi in 1943. Although Emily had a good education and never suffered any disadvantages from being black, she always felt displaced.

After she graduated from college, she worked to earn enough money to travel and when she ran out of money, she returned home to work again. When she was twenty-three, Tamar, who was now married and resident in Israel, invited her to visit and the Israel airport inspectors gave Emily such a bad time about her name and where she came from that she highly resented it. She admits that she also gave them a lot of smart lip until she realized she would be there forever if she didn’t’ straighten out.

Tamar told Emily that Israel had many black Jews from all over the world. The Falashas or Beth Israel were Ethiopian Jews; there were black Americans from Chicago squatting in the desert. Under the Jewish Law of Return, airlifts in 1984 and 1991 brought Beta Israels from Africa to an absorption center in Haifa. The living conditions were terrible, food was scarce, few bathrooms and the only things they were taught in order to adjust to Israel were dietary laws, Hebrew and hygene. Then they were shunted off to slum ghettos where the young people never adjusted because Israeli schools don’t allow for any adjustments.

Black slaves always felt a kinship to the Hebrew slaves in the Bible and as a young woman, Emily had all of the Bob Marley records, him being a Jamaican promoted returning to Zion or Ethiopia and that Haile Selasse was their Ethiopian Messiah. Eventually Emily traveled to Jamaica. Bob Marley had started the Rastafari movement which urged a repatriation of black people to Ethiopia or Africa. Through her travels and searches, Emily went to Ethiopia, Ghana and the American South. Eventually she settled down, married and resided in New York. Then she began to investigate many of the black American preachers who raised thousands of dollars from their congregation and their spiels that convinced their congregations to give til it hurt. She visited relatives who lived through and sustained damage from hurricane Katrina and the failure of the U.S. government to provide as they should have.

When the book ends, she is still searching, although it isn’t clear for what. Her explicit and intelligent revelations of her search is educational with enough drama and emotional reactions to draw any reader into her journey. I heartily recommend it. ...more

Envoys will come out of Egypt; Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God. Psalm 68:31 (NASB)

“I inhaled, knowing he was right as soon as he said it. At its root, my quest wasn’t about identity. It was about faith.” (Page 76)

Emily Raboteau’s newest work, Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora, is truly a book about the quest for home. It is a raw, angry, hopeful, and frustrated journey that takes the author on a journey to parts of Israel and Jamaica that touristsEnvoys will come out of Egypt; Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God. Psalm 68:31 (NASB)

“I inhaled, knowing he was right as soon as he said it. At its root, my quest wasn’t about identity. It was about faith.” (Page 76)

Emily Raboteau’s newest work, Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora, is truly a book about the quest for home. It is a raw, angry, hopeful, and frustrated journey that takes the author on a journey to parts of Israel and Jamaica that tourists do not visit or perhaps know about; and to places they do visit – a place of Rastafari pilgrimage called Shashemene in Ethiopia; to Elmina Castle in Ghana that sits along the Atlantic coast and through which slaves bound for the west were huddled and herded into slave ships; and finally into the American south and a place called Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

But it is also an inward journey as Raboteau – whose mixed race heritage and light skin causes her to be frequently misidentified and, as she admits early in the book, made her very angry – commences her decade long journey to find a place she calls home, beginning with a trip to Israel to visit a childhood friend whom she had grown up with in Princeton, New Jersey where her father had been the Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion.

During that journey she discovers that there are Jews who are black and the discovery creates a desire to return and find out more about the black Jews and their history. Finding a unique blend of Judaism in the Negev desert alongside Rastafari in Tel Aviv night clubs, Raboteau begins to explore the wider themes, events, and personalities as the book’s subtitle indicates “the quest for home in the African Diaspora.” The result is an important addition to understanding the history of Biblical themes of Exodus, Egypt, and Babylon that is a part of black history and religion.

Journeying to Kingston, Jamaica and learning about the influence of the late Bob Marley (she would later meet with Marley’s widow in Ghana) and Rastafari, Raboteau begins to encounter themes and issues that she would face again and again in her journey – the effects of the slave trade centuries later, race relations, economic inequalities, the hollowness (perhaps shallowness) of the museums and shrines erected to those who sought to create a new African union and consciousness, and, most importantly, her increasing realization that home is not a place of geography but something deeper. But in her visit to Jamaica she encounters a heart felt desire by many to return to Africa and especially Ethiopia “the Promised Land.”

Her journey to Ethiopia, which is part three of this five part work, takes the reader back into both pre and post colonial African history and reveals a nation’s history that stretches back to Biblical times. But there she sees a disconnection between the hoped for dreams and the reality that surrounds her. After entering a party in honor of Haile Selassie’s birthday anniversary celebration that turns dangerous for her, there is a turning point in her journey, “I was sick of Rastas and Ethiopians as they were of each other. And I was sick of myself.” But it was also a point at which she further realized “there was no such place as Zion; that it was a metaphor at best.”

Her journey then took her to Ghana and there she toured a major Elmina Castle a major departure point for slave ships to the West. But she also was increasingly disillusioned with the disconnect between what she saw in both the native culture and the visiting culture, embodied in the group she toured Elmina with. The result in some notable conversations result in a surprise for Raboteau, “Most of the pilgrims I’d met on my travels through Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and Ghana seemed as focused on the past as on the present. Very rarely on the future. They were shackled by the old stories, as if there weren’t any others to tell. I was ready to go back to America, my nation.”

The result is the book’s final trip with her husband and her cancer-stricken father to the gulf coast of Mississippi and the town of Bay St. Louis, still rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina, the place of her family’s ancestry for a family celebration. While en-route she notes, “I felt now what I’d known from the beginning. Zion is within. I understood that I would forget this and, as with love, or faith, have to learn it again.”

What I like about this book is the meshing of both the panoramic sweep and personal views (author and those interviewed for the book) regarding African history and life. There is a lot to ponder in this book. A second reading might be a good thing because this is a ‘rich’ book. Rich in tone, personality, emotion, and humanity....more

Emily Raboteau takes us on a journey that we all need to take if we care about tolerance, diversity, the world, humankind. She illuminates a subject that is present in so many minds: where is home for the displaced? Zion captures the imagination of multitudes: from the Jews, to Christians, to blacks, to native peoples of every continent. It is the place of belonging, where we can feel at home in our skin, our beliefs, our speech, our rhythms. Zion to me is nature; my mind was captured by Utah’sEmily Raboteau takes us on a journey that we all need to take if we care about tolerance, diversity, the world, humankind. She illuminates a subject that is present in so many minds: where is home for the displaced? Zion captures the imagination of multitudes: from the Jews, to Christians, to blacks, to native peoples of every continent. It is the place of belonging, where we can feel at home in our skin, our beliefs, our speech, our rhythms. Zion to me is nature; my mind was captured by Utah’s Zion National Park as a fortress and refuge and oasis in the deserts of southern Utah that shelters wildlife, trees, and me. As half-black, half-white, Raboteau idolizes and follows in the footsteps of her father, a renowned history of African-American studies/religion; but she can “pass” and in fact is mistaken for white in Africa, Arabic/Lebanese in Israel, and much in between, so she is looking for something different, a place where her mixed status can be welcomed. She is honest, unflinching, funny, and heartbreaking. It is cliché, but I laughed and cried and this is non-fiction, fairly un-poetic and unemotional, but still powerful.

She travels the globe to see where others have sought and found Zion: black Jews in Israel, Rastafarians in Jamaica, Ethiopia, and Ghana; Jews in Ethiopia; African Americans in Ghana; Evangelicals in the American South; Hurricane Katrina transplants; and weaves in her own history and experience. She is a devotee of Bob Marley, so she spends more time than I could take on the Rastafarians, and I wonder if she is still a devotee because her experiences are negative each place she encounters them. I had no idea that they emigrated to Africa, or even that they thought Haile Selassie was a living god; and I had to work hard not to discount them outright and try to be tolerant. Raboteau says she is a seeker, which unfortunately makes her susceptible to quacks, charlatans, and the like, but it just peppers her writing and analysis in a lovely, novel way because ultimately, she is too smart to completely give in, but she gives them all a chance in her heart.

In Ghana, she talks about Sankofa, an Ghanaian Akan word, that can mean “go back and take” or be understood as “it is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten” or “we need to look to the past to understand the present.” It is symbolized by a heart with some embellishment, and was a tattoo on a Ghanaian woman, who richly and convolutedly, was actually from Hungary, married to a Ghanaian. It was also found on a coffin found buried in Manhattan which led to the discovery of 419 coffins; that area possibly held more than 20,000 slave remains and it is under what is now Ground Zero. Raboteau reminds us that, “that is over seven times the number of victims of the September 11th attacks.” She participated in the ceremony to rebury and rededicate the remains and says, “there I stood in the light autumn rain, with a crowd of onlookers at South and Wall Streets, once the site of the second largest slave market in America…the funeral was a feat of improvisation-two parts mourning, one part circus.” I can’t even imagine the feelings of that moment, and she doesn’t dwell on it much here, but later talks about her grandfather’s death by beating in the South that made her grandmother flee to Michigan, and cut her father and later, herself, from her Southern roots. Incidentally, the group Sankofa is a bluegrass offshoot of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, both of which I recommend highly and it ties into the lyrics below.

When she visits the South to take the Civil Rights tour, and ultimately reunites with some distant cousins for Easter, she talks about how both she and her father always felt that Mississippi was home even though she was never there except to visit. Her father said, “it was never my home, it was the only home I ever knew.” That is so hard to understand. When I briefly lived on the Florida Panhandle, arguably part of the Deep South since it was within shouting distance of Alabama, but less inhabited by blacks, I was astonished to learn that a town in Mississippi integrated its prom for the first time in 2008. A documentary was made about it:

“In 1997, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the senior prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi under one condition: the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer was ignored. In 2008, Freeman offered again. This time the school board accepted, and history was made. Charleston High School had its first-ever integrated prom - in 2008. Until then, blacks and whites had had separate proms even though their classrooms have been integrated for decades. Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman follows students, teachers and parents in the lead-up to the big day. This seemingly inconsequential rite of passage suddenly becomes profound as the weight of history falls on teenage shoulders. We quickly learn that change does not come easily in this sleepy Delta town. Freeman's generosity fans the flames of racism - and racism in Charleston has a distinctly generational tinge. Some white parents forbid their children to attend the integrated prom and hold a separate white-only dance. "Billy Joe," an enlightened white senior, appears on camera in shadow, fearing his racist parents will disown him if they know his true feelings. PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI captures a big moment in a small town, where hope finally blossoms in black, white and a whole lot of taffeta. -David Courier, Sundance Film Festival”

But I understand now.

“On the airplane my father expressed excitement about his return. We didn’t speak of it, but we both suspected it could be his last. He looked frail to me as he scrounged through his tote bag for the Chinese tea pills meant to help with the prostate cancer. The baby inside me was only the size of one of his pills. I felt now what I’d known from the beginning. Zion is within. I understood that I would forget this fact and, as with love, or faith, have to learn it again.”

And the Carolina Chocolate Drops sing:

I was raised in the country that's a natural fact Food on the table from the garden out back Everyone working to make the land their own Red clay crackin' where the silver queen grows

Runnin' with your cousins from yard to yard Livin' was easy but the playin' was hard Didn't have much nothing comes for free All you needed was your family

Chorus I am a country girl I've been around the world And every place I've been Ain't quite nothin' like Livin' in the south Oh, honey, shut your mouth I am a country girl I am a country girl

Biscuits in the morning and gravy too Fried chicken in the afternoon Jaw draggin' eatin' sweet potato pie Takin' half an hour to say goodbye Blackberry patches, scuppernong vines Sweet Georgia peaches and dandelion wine The best kind of food is made by hand The only place to get it is from the land

CHORUS

All day I dream about a place in the sun Kinda like where I'm from With the tall grass blowin' in the breeze Runnin' barefoot round the tall oak trees

All day I dream about a place I've been A place where the skin I'm in Feels like its supposed to be And anyone around who looks at me says

Chorus I am a country girl I've been around the world And every place I've been Ain't quite nothin' like Livin' in the south Oh, honey, shut your mouth I am a country girl I am a country girl

This book was really interesting. I didn't really like or dislike it, but it tackled some topics that were new to me in a manner that was also quite fascinating to read. I appreciated the opportunity to have my eyes opened to new ways of thinking.

I took a lot of notes while reading this book, which is always a good sign to me. Raboteau includes a ton of interesting research about the Black Israelites, Rastas, Haile Selassie, Ethiopia, etc. The book itself is a solid read. Like most memoirs, it slows down in some places that make the reader want to flip ahead, but overall, it has a good pace and Raboteau is an engaging storyteller.

This fascinating and powerful memoir took me to places I didn't know I wanted to go and considered questions I didn't know I had. When author Emily Raboteau visits her lifelong best friend at her new home in Israel it sets Raboteau off on a ten year quest to find a homeland of her own. With a black father and white mother giving her an appearance that made it difficult for people to classify her, Raboteau often had the sense that she didn't fit in anywhere. She became intrigued with the idea ofThis fascinating and powerful memoir took me to places I didn't know I wanted to go and considered questions I didn't know I had. When author Emily Raboteau visits her lifelong best friend at her new home in Israel it sets Raboteau off on a ten year quest to find a homeland of her own. With a black father and white mother giving her an appearance that made it difficult for people to classify her, Raboteau often had the sense that she didn't fit in anywhere. She became intrigued with the idea of a black Zion, or homeland, and that led her first back to Israel to visit the Beta Israelis, Jews from Ethiopia with a long religious tradition who are renamed and re-educated when they immigrate to Israel, and also a community of African American Israelis who have lived for decades in the Negev Desert .

After that she travels to Jamaica to understand more about the culture and beliefs of Rastafarians, Ethiopia to see the settlement created there by Jamaican transplants who are convinced Ethiopia is their promised land, and Ghana to talk to African Americans who relocated there seeking connection with the continent of their ancestors. Raboteau is deeply curious about these peoples, why they moved where they did and how they feel about it now, and this book provides a mesmerizing inside look at their subcultures. She treats everyone she meets with sincere respect, but doesn't gloss over or ignore their shortcomings and inconsistencies--for instance in Ethiopia it's the Jamaicans who are colonizers and they don't always treat the locals well, in spite of their own experience of colonization.

The book ends with Raboteau visiting her Hurricane Katrina displaced relatives in the American South, where she tours sites of the Civil Rights Movement and again considers questions of what makes a home. I learned a lot reading this book, and enjoyed the journey immensely. As an added bonus, Raboteau has a wonderful way with words, deftly picking out details to set a scene or describe the many people she met in her travels....more

This book is a combination of a travel journal and a memoir. For the most part, I think it works well, because she uses conversations to tell her story. Where I think it falls short, is when she is expressing her displeasure for some place or thing. I know she was attempting to be humorous, but it often comes across as mean. She says of a Rasta pioneer gathering in Ethiopia, "at that moment they looked to me liked an ancient order of Smurfs." There are other passages like this, and I find them sThis book is a combination of a travel journal and a memoir. For the most part, I think it works well, because she uses conversations to tell her story. Where I think it falls short, is when she is expressing her displeasure for some place or thing. I know she was attempting to be humorous, but it often comes across as mean. She says of a Rasta pioneer gathering in Ethiopia, "at that moment they looked to me liked an ancient order of Smurfs." There are other passages like this, and I find them superfluous and unnecessary.

Having said that, the book has some teachable moments and through the many conversations she has in Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia and Ghana you can learn bits about these countries and their customs, and how "outsiders" are viewed. Emily as a "bi-racial" was trying to find where her personal "Zion" exists. Light enough to pass for white, but often mistaken for Hispanic, Arab, or some combination, but rarely as a Black person. This longing for foundation sets her on a physical journey to give answer to the question she has never quite cared for; "what are you?"

So, it is an interesting journey for Emily, and although the book drags in places, it moves at a pace that keeps you reading. I think it's an ok read, and you learn some intriguing things and are privy to some amusing conversations in one woman's search for that mythical place called Zion....more

I appreciated Searching for Zion for its subject--"The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora," as the subtitle reads--and for its breadth in covering that subject. Raboteau, the U.S. daughter of black professor and a white mother, travels to Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and Ghana to talk with members of the African diaspora who have physically relocated in an attempt to "return" to their spiritual and/or ethnic homeland. Raboteau also visits southern U.S. cities that were important in the Civil RI appreciated Searching for Zion for its subject--"The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora," as the subtitle reads--and for its breadth in covering that subject. Raboteau, the U.S. daughter of black professor and a white mother, travels to Israel, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and Ghana to talk with members of the African diaspora who have physically relocated in an attempt to "return" to their spiritual and/or ethnic homeland. Raboteau also visits southern U.S. cities that were important in the Civil Rights Movement, such as Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma, and members of her family who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Unfortunately, the breadth of Raboteau's coverage results at times in a feeling that her discussion of each individual group or topic is limited and perhaps does not convey a complete picture of the group or individual whom she is describing. I think Raboteau spends no more than a week in most of the locations she writes about, which makes me wonder what nuances she was unable to pick up on and what observations a longer stay would have revealed to her, and through her, to us, the readers.

Still, I appreciated the mission and scope of the book. I think someone really interested in this topic (well, like me) will probably be left wanting to read a book about each of the five sections. For example, before reading Searching for Zion, I read All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou, which is about Angelou's experiences moving to Ghana in the 60s. I think Raboteau's section on Ghana was a great complement to Angelou's book, so similarly, I'd love to read a book that is solely dedicated to one of each of the other four areas Raboteau discusses.

I think I also failed to be moved by Raboteau's personal journey in the end as much as I expected to be based on the book's beginning. I identified with her mixed identity struggles in the beginning and middle of the book, but as the book wore on I didn't find Raboteau's description of her personal journey to be satisfying. I think she had so much research to do and information to communicate that her personal story kind of faded into the background at the end. So I didn't have the same feeling, for example, that I had at the end of Kenji Yoshino's book Covering where he uses his identity as a starting point to examine civil rights, or Eboo Patel's Acts of Faith about religious pluralism, where I felt like the book came full circle both in the book's social topic and the author's personal journey.

But in the grand scheme of things, I feel like that last point's a minor quibble and also a highly subjective quibble. Probably many other readers won't feel that way at all. The important thing is, it's a great book and I respect Raboteau deeply for her thoughtful coverage of such a huge and important topic, and for her bravery and initiative in diving into a topic that has been so complicated for her personally to let others benefit from her research and expertise....more

Full Disclosure: I received this book as an ARC from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for a review, and this review also can be found on Amazon.

Searching for Zion was first excerpted in The Believer, which published the chapter titled: "Points to Ponder when Considering Repatriating Home", which stirred my interest in Raboteau's larger work.

Ten-years in the making, Searching for Zion could be catagorized as a personal memoir, a family memoir, a travel memoir, a work of history and a study iFull Disclosure: I received this book as an ARC from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for a review, and this review also can be found on Amazon.

Searching for Zion was first excerpted in The Believer, which published the chapter titled: "Points to Ponder when Considering Repatriating Home", which stirred my interest in Raboteau's larger work.

Ten-years in the making, Searching for Zion could be catagorized as a personal memoir, a family memoir, a travel memoir, a work of history and a study in comparative religions. It transcends all, though, as a narrative of a young 'witness', as the author finally styles herself at the end, searching for a definition of home.

"Points to Ponder" is perhaps the most riveting chapter in the entire book: Raboteau skillfully disects the legacy of slavery in Ghana while describing her visit to the slave castle of Elmina and discussing the relationships between African Americans who 'Repatriate home' to Ghana and the Ghanians who never left.

The fates of diasporas are an educational interest of mine and I was rapt with Ms. Raboteau's history of Black Zionism. She travels from Harlem to Israel to Jamaica, to Ethiopia and Ghana, and finally to the Black belt of the American south, seeking answers from the communities of the Black diaspora to the question: What is Zion? And where? All the while she investigates her own feelings of displacement, or misplacement, and how they relate to her African-American heritage and her relationship to her father.

I am not a fan of the new creative-non-fiction that has become so popular recently. There are few things that I dislike more than reading a blurb of a book, describing some strange or forgotten history, only to pick the book up and in chapter three have to read about the author's fraught relationship with their mother or the backpacking trip they took through Moravia when they were 19. It is a rare author who can pull off inserting history into personal memoir or personal memoir into history, but Raboteau succeeds by writing a book that, by making its focus neither personal history nor greater history, but a search for a definition, seamlessly incorporates both personal memoir and narrative history together into a coherent, organic whole.

The only thing that this book was missing, for me, was Harlem. After starting off in the first chapters describing her neighborhood, Raboteau stops. She seems to insinuate that Harlem was Zion, too, for blacks fleeing the South, and that Harlem was a departure point for many seeking Zion elsewhere, but it is always in the perifery, never at the forefront. Many of Ms.Raboteau's interviews are incredibly probing, and she doesn't seem to let people off easily. I wonder if she chose not to cover her neighborhood because she didn't want to put her neighbors on the spot; or maybe I am wrong and she wasn't really hinting at a place for Harlem in her quest for Zion.

It’s a perilous thing to write a review so soon after finishing a book, but I shall try. First -- Why does the book exist? The writer begins with a humiliating search by security at Israel’s airport by personnel who are confused by her heritage. She is light-skinned, considers herself black and has what they fear is an Arab middle name. She’s in search of Zion.

After this intro, we are introduced to her upbringing. She is the child of an African-american professor and a white mother who is unfortIt’s a perilous thing to write a review so soon after finishing a book, but I shall try. First -- Why does the book exist? The writer begins with a humiliating search by security at Israel’s airport by personnel who are confused by her heritage. She is light-skinned, considers herself black and has what they fear is an Arab middle name. She’s in search of Zion.

After this intro, we are introduced to her upbringing. She is the child of an African-american professor and a white mother who is unfortunately almost invisible in this text. Not feeling at home in America, she envies her Jewish best-friend who had the same feeling and eventually emigrated to Israel. While in Israel, she discovers the Beta Israel and hears about the Black Hebrews who live in Dimona. The idea of the book begins here; she will travel the black Diaspora to ask whether any of those myriad places became their Zion and their home.

It’s an interesting trip that that approximately ten years (If I have the dates correct). While she finds some people satisfied with their lot, she finds many more dissatisfied and eager to explain why “this” place is not Zion. Zion is somewhere else. From Israel, the book takes us to Jamaica. From Jamaica to Ethiopia. From Ethiopia to Ghana. From Ghana to Bay St. Louis where her father’s father was lynched. Along the way, she meets many elders that advise her and confuse her. Instead of major figures, she spends a lot of time with everyday Jamaicans, Ethiopians, and Ghanians. She comes to her own understanding of home. And funny enough --which I saw a mile away--she finds out that the “arab” middle name is actually jewish, the result of a liaison between her great-great grandmother and a german jewish merchant.

I enjoyed the book. Occasionally, I was amazed by what she claims not to know of black or world history. I wonder if this was done for effect so that she could elicit a story from her host’s point of view. On the other hand, she is very well versed in the story of the African liberation movement. She moves among the poor and lower middle-class people of each country with no trace of being the ugly American. (People occasionally told her tales about Americans complaining about the lack of air conditioning in the middle of a poor African country.) I was envious of her ability with languages. I appreciated the fact that she had to save up for these trips; it made this search sound realistic. I only wish that the book included some of the many pictures that she mentions taking. I found the book a page turner even though it is non-fiction. Each frustrated attempt to find Zion draws us to the next one. Unlike her, we can make this ten year search in a matter of days....more

In a literary style more reminiscent of Paul Theroux than Frank McCourt, Emily Raboteau takes readers in “Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora” on a decade-long journey she undertook in searching for the Promised Land, Zion, after a brief visit to the Jewish Zion, Israel, compels her to begin her quest for a Zion, a “home” that is the desired goal of various black communities she encounters in the United States, Jamaica,A Memorable Searching for the Promised Land, Zion

In a literary style more reminiscent of Paul Theroux than Frank McCourt, Emily Raboteau takes readers in “Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora” on a decade-long journey she undertook in searching for the Promised Land, Zion, after a brief visit to the Jewish Zion, Israel, compels her to begin her quest for a Zion, a “home” that is the desired goal of various black communities she encounters in the United States, Jamaica, Ghana, Ethiopia, and, indeed, Israel. Trying to understand the concept of Zion within Rastafarians, she travels to from Jamaica to the distant Rastafarian settlement of Shashemene in a remote corner of Ethiopia, giving readers brief historical glimpses into the origins and religious nature of Rastafarians. Her encounters with Beta Israel, Ethiopian Jews residing in Israel, are among the most memorable meetings she describes in her book, which, as I have hinted earlier, reads more like a series of travelogues about Raboteau exploring the African Diaspora in a literary style echoing Theroux, than as a literary memoir as emotionally riveting as McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes”. Raboteau is a compelling storyteller and a fine prose stylist, and yet, if readers seek a better understanding of the African Diaspora, then they are served better by reading the work of economists and economic historians (e. g. Thomas Sowell), not a work of nonfiction written by a writer not trained in these fields. However, mine is a relatively minor criticism of what should be viewed as a notable work of nonfiction by a writer whose family history reflects the cultural, psychological - and political – divide that has marked the history of race relations between blacks and whites in the United States for centuries. If for no other reason than this, then readers should read Raboteau’s excellent blend of travelogue, history and memoir. ...more

As I've probably mentioned before, I used to manage a couple of Black bookstores back in the day. And besides being able to do my favorite thing, talk about books all day long, I also learned so much about Black history, African history, and the many cultures within the African diaspora. I came to meet Rastafarians, Hebrew Israelites, Muslims and felt my world become bigger because of it.

Raboteau, the biracial daughter of a Princeton professor of religion, grew up hearing about the concept of "As I've probably mentioned before, I used to manage a couple of Black bookstores back in the day. And besides being able to do my favorite thing, talk about books all day long, I also learned so much about Black history, African history, and the many cultures within the African diaspora. I came to meet Rastafarians, Hebrew Israelites, Muslims and felt my world become bigger because of it.

Raboteau, the biracial daughter of a Princeton professor of religion, grew up hearing about the concept of "Zion" and the promised land as it relates to the African-American experience. Her childhood best friend was a Jewish woman who relocated to Israel, a place considered "home" for her people and visiting her, comes across a community of Black Jews while in Israel and she begins to take an interest in other black communities who have set off from their place of birth to find their Zion or Promised Land.

Her journey finds her in contact with Black Hebrew Israelites who left America to establish a home in Israel, Ethiopian Jews who have done the same, and Rastafarians who have relocated to their spiritual home of Ethiopia. In visiting these communities and hearing the stories of the seekers, she also reflects on her own need to find a "home" and where she, as a half black woman, belongs in the world. Although this memoir tends to go off the rails at times, it was in the interest of providing historical context to Raboteau's experiences. Quite a unique memoir....more

At age 23 Emily Roboteau flew to Israel to visit a friend and found herself interrogated by Israeli agents at the airport and strip searched apparently because they believed she was Arab. Emily's parents are African-American and White and apparently her middle name is Arabic which she never knew. The name came from her father's side of the family. After that experience and meeting a group of Ethiopian Jews, she started thinking of people who are searching for a Zion or a promised land. Where doAt age 23 Emily Roboteau flew to Israel to visit a friend and found herself interrogated by Israeli agents at the airport and strip searched apparently because they believed she was Arab. Emily's parents are African-American and White and apparently her middle name is Arabic which she never knew. The name came from her father's side of the family. After that experience and meeting a group of Ethiopian Jews, she started thinking of people who are searching for a Zion or a promised land. Where do many Black people feel the belong? The Ethiopian Jews were rejected by Israel repeatedly until they were caught in a war in the Ethiopia and the world's eyes focused on Israel. Their acceptance in Jewish society is still precarious and not always friendly. She travels to Jamaica where there are groups which see Zion as a potential home and the Rastafarians who see Hallie Sallasie as their savior and Ethiopia as their homeland. In Ethiopia, she finds a neighborhood of Jamaicans who moved to Ethiopia over the years. In Ghana, African-Americans try to find a homeland but are considered foreigners but with a friendly smile. Raboteau ends up in the South in the US looking at Birmingham and other places where many African-Americans identify as their homeland even though it has also mistreated them throughout their history. An interesting book. ...more

In Searching for Zion, Emily Raboteau, a bi=racial American writer, spends a decade, from the age of 23, on an odyssey in pursuit of the promised land, an odyssey which takes her to Ghana, Israel, Ethiopia and the American South and which brings her alongside many different pilgrims on the same journey, from the African Hebrew Israelites to the Rastafarians. In the end, she finds that a sense of home is much more elusive than she'd initially imagined, not just for her bur for the pilgrims she meIn Searching for Zion, Emily Raboteau, a bi=racial American writer, spends a decade, from the age of 23, on an odyssey in pursuit of the promised land, an odyssey which takes her to Ghana, Israel, Ethiopia and the American South and which brings her alongside many different pilgrims on the same journey, from the African Hebrew Israelites to the Rastafarians. In the end, she finds that a sense of home is much more elusive than she'd initially imagined, not just for her bur for the pilgrims she meets along the way.

The book is a very unique and tremendously powerful marriage of memoir and cultural anthropology, and as such can cover a vast geographical area and diverse populations while feeling all the time incredibly close and personal because of how much Raboteau divulges about herself and her emotional journey. Her voice is so funny, whip-smart, refreshingly honest and evocative -- the people she meets and places she passes through jump off the page so vividly and stay with you. The observations she makes, and the questions she poses about what home is are complicated, nuanced, compelling. I highly recommend this book and can't wait for the next work by this tremendously talented author. ...more

Reading this book hit the mark on so many levels. It provides deep insight into the life of "others", as well as "whites" and "blacks". Emily has clearly chosen a side in the race game, one she didn't have to, many others would have taken a different approach, to pass for anyone other than those who have been relegated to the bottom rung in so many societies.

I see her search for identity as much about a search for her father who was lost to her during much of her childhood, as it is about belonReading this book hit the mark on so many levels. It provides deep insight into the life of "others", as well as "whites" and "blacks". Emily has clearly chosen a side in the race game, one she didn't have to, many others would have taken a different approach, to pass for anyone other than those who have been relegated to the bottom rung in so many societies.

I see her search for identity as much about a search for her father who was lost to her during much of her childhood, as it is about belonging. Her scholarly and journalistic approach to what is clearly an emotional journey for her contributes to what some found as disjointed. She seems almost ashamed and apologetic that her anger is at a third party remove. Her youth, naivete and Americaness (much to her chagrin) are apparent,yet the historical background and direct contact anecdotes that she provides create a skeleton that hold the process together.

There is much to be learned in this book for blacks and whites, American and foreign. Race,class and religion are complicated issues, viewed differently all over the world. There are no simple answers, just like there is no Zion on a world filled with human beings.

Searching. Rarely have I read a book where I took notes. I rarely did that through college and grad school. Which may explain my grades. Seriously, this book was just that full of information, much of which was new to me and I wanted to verify from other sources. Raboteau is very informed, whether that is from her life in general, or from culling information from other sources, she is a font of information. She brings this all together and enriches this "travelogue" of a memoir to make it a womaSearching. Rarely have I read a book where I took notes. I rarely did that through college and grad school. Which may explain my grades. Seriously, this book was just that full of information, much of which was new to me and I wanted to verify from other sources. Raboteau is very informed, whether that is from her life in general, or from culling information from other sources, she is a font of information. She brings this all together and enriches this "travelogue" of a memoir to make it a woman's, no, a human beings quest for the spiritual El Dorado. Ask a hundred different people what Zion means and you will get a thousand different answers. Reaching Zion is as easy as a filling your lungs with breath of air and at the same time as elusive as trying to grab onto your shadow. Raboteau tries to show us how this is the case on her personal quest, but her quest becomes our quest.

She fills her story with personal anecdotes, the people she met, the things she went through, and fills us all in on the things she did not know and helps enlighten us all, as she herself was enlightened on this journey.

An award winner - and beautifully written. Emily's personal account of her searching for home and the comfort of belonging. She has a white, Irish-American mother and a black African-American father. It is history in its most interesting form, a personal accounting as it has affected her and displaced families around the world. It is current events with music and people struggling with the need to belong. The reader travels with Emily to Africa and discovers history with her and from her point oAn award winner - and beautifully written. Emily's personal account of her searching for home and the comfort of belonging. She has a white, Irish-American mother and a black African-American father. It is history in its most interesting form, a personal accounting as it has affected her and displaced families around the world. It is current events with music and people struggling with the need to belong. The reader travels with Emily to Africa and discovers history with her and from her point of view. She is both tourist and reporter, interviewing people enmeshed in the same issues. I was educated and entranced....more

Searching for Zion is a stirring combination of memoir, travelogue and cultural history. The writing is lyrical, always candid and so very, very smart. I was immediately swept up by the narrative and came away feeling genuinely enriched, as though I had personally enjoyed many of Ms. Raboteau's varied cultural adventures. The descriptions of her far flung international destinations are gorgeous and the questions thought provoking. Though Ms. Raboteau's search is unique, the questions she asks arSearching for Zion is a stirring combination of memoir, travelogue and cultural history. The writing is lyrical, always candid and so very, very smart. I was immediately swept up by the narrative and came away feeling genuinely enriched, as though I had personally enjoyed many of Ms. Raboteau's varied cultural adventures. The descriptions of her far flung international destinations are gorgeous and the questions thought provoking. Though Ms. Raboteau's search is unique, the questions she asks are universal. I defy anyone to read Searching for Zion and not yearn to hit their own open road. ...more

Raboteau's quest to define her concept of home as a biracial woman is powerful, beautifully written, and alive with detail. Her descriptions of life in Israel, Jamaica, and the American South are by turns funny and painful, but always vivid. And she deftly manages two challenges that most memoirists have real trouble with: she is honest and open, even when showing herself in an unflattering light, and she moves beyond her own story to bring us into the lives of the people she meets along the wayRaboteau's quest to define her concept of home as a biracial woman is powerful, beautifully written, and alive with detail. Her descriptions of life in Israel, Jamaica, and the American South are by turns funny and painful, but always vivid. And she deftly manages two challenges that most memoirists have real trouble with: she is honest and open, even when showing herself in an unflattering light, and she moves beyond her own story to bring us into the lives of the people she meets along the way, generously letting them each take center stage in turn. This book is going to stay with me for a long time....more

This book was surprisingly disappointing. The story of the African-American search for Zion seems to be an interesting one, but the book is heavy on anecdotes that are hard to fit together. It is often challenging to understand the motivations of both the protagonist and author and those she interacts with. More historical context would be useful, as would a tighter structure and a clearer sense of what the objective of the journey chronicled in this book is.

Contemplative and addressing a universal question of 'finding home', Raboteau's latest is an awe-inspiring piece of work that deserves the attention it is receiving. Check it: it's one of the year's must reads in several 'Books of the Year' lists as well. Such as this one!

Good read. There were so much times when I just laughed and laughed, some things she said really hit home:P Although my parents are both from Ghana and came to Canada on their own, I definately feel the confusion and struggle that Mrs. Raboteau felt as one living in the African Diaspora searching for "home" and "Zion." Well done Mrs. Raboteau!

“It’s such a ridiculous cliché,” Emily Raboteau complains to a friend at one point. “The tragic mulatto whining about not belonging. I don’t want to be that person. That’s not who I am.” That said, this is ultimately the identity she assumes for the purposes of the book.

Emily Raboteau is an avid world traveler and professor at City College, in Harlem. She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Victor LaValle, and their children. Her stories and essays have been widely published and anthologized in places such as The Believer, The Guardian, The Oxford American, Guernica, The Huffington Post, Best American Nonrequired Reading and Best American Short StoriEmily Raboteau is an avid world traveler and professor at City College, in Harlem. She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Victor LaValle, and their children. Her stories and essays have been widely published and anthologized in places such as The Believer, The Guardian, The Oxford American, Guernica, The Huffington Post, Best American Nonrequired Reading and Best American Short Stories. Raboteau's awards include a Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Award. She is at work completing her second novel, Endurance, about a New York City building superintendent and his autistic son....more